Skyscraper Heavens

By John Rubens

Book Synopsis

Khalid, our narrator, and his two cousins, Jahan and Jaleh, comment on the record of a historic revolution they are busy researching via live lessons and recorded discs. Skyscraper Heavens weaves the dialogue of the characters, which include Zareen, Khalids wife, around the backdrop of a largely chronological summation of a revolution in the fictional Middle Eastern country of Baug. The retelling of the events of the revolution and the characters responses to it touch on Marcusian themes of opposition and containment. The juxtaposition of timelines and the live and prerecorded study sessions in which the characters participate form a motif for the reader, a mosaic of the dialectic.